When I Forget Thy Thousand Ways
by Hekate1308
Summary: After a nearly disastrous case, Sherlock and John share a tense taxi ride back to Baker Street. With emotions running high, they finally arrive back at 221B, and then... Written for a tumblr challenge. Post-Reichenbach.


**Author's note: I decided to try my hand at a tumblr challenge. **

**I don't own anything. **

He takes too many chances. He always has, he always will. He's looking out of the window right now, like it means nothing to him, like he doesn't care that he almost died – again.

I care. I've cared since the moment Mike Stamford introduced us –

Mike. I really should call him one of these days, I really owe them a call, he and his wife weren't angry when we left their wedding to catch a criminal –

Wedding. Why did I ever break things off with Mary? It's obvious, as Sherlock would say. Because I couldn't let her compete with him, not even after he'd returned. Once upon a time, I thought it was easier to compete with a memory –

It isn't, and for Mary, it wasn't. She was a wonderful woman; I didn't deserve her. Maybe it's as simple as that –

No, no, it isn't. Because, while I didn't deserve her, I'll never deny it, it wasn't that simple, because –

She would have been perfect for me, once upon a time. Before I went to Afghanistan. No, even after I went to Afghanistan. She would have been perfect for me until I met Sherlock.

But I met Sherlock before I met her, and I came to love this life, this strange, unpredictable, crazy life so much that even after his death, I couldn't –

Mary wanted children, a family. I couldn't give her that. I had to return to Baker Street, my one home, my only home, even if I hadn't set a foot in it for six months when I met her –

There was never any question if I would return. The question was when I would return, I know that now –

Because even without Sherlock, there was the Smiley face on the wall, and I could sit on the Union Jack Pillow and talk to the skull – just another thing Mrs. Hudson hadn't been able to throw away, no matter how many times she had confiscated it – and during a few moments, minutes, hours, it was as if he'd never left.

Not that it matters, now that he's back, or at least that's what he would say. Or maybe it's rather what he wants everyone to believe he would say. It's difficult, being Sherlock Holmes' best friend, and yet I chose this life –

He could have died tonight, and this time, there would have been no magic trick to bring him back. He would have been gone, and –

And –

He doesn't understand. How could he? He wouldn't – there's no reason he should and yet –

Why am I the one who understand what his death would have meant? He's so intelligent. Shouldn't he be able to deduce what I felt when I saw him jumping into the line of fire? No, he isn't. Of course he isn't. If there's one thing Sherlock Holmes will never be able to understand –

Maybe I am being unfair. He was panicked when he thought I'd been shot. Why did I feel so utterly smug at that moment? I shouldn't have been – I should have been –

But he was screaming at me, asking me to tell him I wasn't hurt, and again, I shouldn't have been so glad, but I was. It's good to know he does care, it's good to know –

That's not fair, I'm not being fair. He cares; I know he does. He's said it often enough since he came back. Every time I needed to hear it. Damn him and his mind-reading abilities. But he never really shows that he does, like when he fa –

No. I don't want to think about it. Why can't I just not think about it, now he's back? It's the past. He probably doesn't think about it, or only when he sees I'm once again remembering –

He's looking at me, I can tell; I won't turn my head though. I'll watch London go by and not turn around, because it won't change anything if I do. He won't understand. He'll never understand, so why be angry with him now? It's utterly useless.

At times like these, I hate cabs. If we'd have taken the tube, we wouldn't be alone, and he wouldn't be able to stare at me like that; he would be distracted, not so entirely focused on me; there would be other people to look at, to deduce –

Good God, did I really just think that? I should be thankful he's even here to deduce; I should be thankful he's alive to –

But that's the whole trouble, isn't it? He's alive, but after tonight, he may not have been.

Yet again.

As if these three years weren't enough –

No. I have to think logically. How very – how very holmesy of me, not that he would ever approve of the invented adjective. But I have to. I have to be logical. He could have died today, but he could have died many times before.

He did, once.

Again. I'm once again thinking about it, and I shouldn't. It's over and done with, and –

Did we ever really talk about it? I don't think so. He just told me how he came to be alive and why he had to fake his death –

We never talked about the other things, though, what we felt during the time we were separated.

I'm not stupid, no matter what he might think, I've fought a war only to land in the middle of another one, I –

I know what it means when someone doesn't look you in the eyes when he's speaking.

Sherlock has suffered too, and no matter what he might say or do to convince me he didn't I know it, I know him because I always have, ever since I limped into that lab years ago.

It's funny, I suppose. If I'd taken a different road, if I'd chosen not to return through the park, if I'd never met Mike Stamford that day –

I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be asking myself –

Be logical, John. You aren't logical, once again. Where would you be without this chance meeting? Nowhere. You wouldn't have been happy –

Now I'm talking to myself. Great. It's true though.

I wouldn't have been happy, not even if I met Mary, I think, because there would have been no excitement, no cases, no violin concerts in the early hours of the morning. My life would have been grey, utterly grey; it was Sherlock who brought the colours back, I can never forget that.

I don't think I could have lived a grey life for long, in fact I'm rather sure I would have –

Yes, yes I would have. I have to be honest with myself if I want to talk to him later –

"If"? He's still staring at me. He won't stop until I tell him why I've built this wall between us tonight after a successful case when I failed to do so after he had returned. Yes, he will definitely make me talk. He hates not having all the data.

And if he does, and if he is once again the World's most arrogant sod, I have to remind myself why I stick around so I won't punch him.

I would have killed myself without him. I had already started staring at the gun in my drawer a little too long every day, although I pretended I didn't. He saved my life –

And, really, the only reason I was – well, not fine, but something like it – after his – his – disappearance was because I had decided I couldn't leave the world without convincing everyone Sherlock had been right, that he hadn't been a fake and –

I was still figuring out how to do that when he returned. And then of course it wasn't necessary, so I never mentioned it.

I will mention it tonight, I will mention everything tonight.

Why didn't I before? Because he was back and that was enough; because he might never explain himself to me but I didn't care, since I had been returned to a world of colours; because –

Because I'm still afraid. He disappeared once, he might do it again; what is holding him here, after all? Am I really supposed to believe that he returned for me?

I'm being ungrateful again, but I can't help it. I've always wondered why we share this special connection, why he didn't find someone like – like –

It doesn't matter in the long run, because we moved in together, and our lives have become so mingled I can hardly say where one begins and another one ends. Not that I want it to end. I want this, whatever it is, to continue, forever, if possible.

And he would have thrown it all away today, the idiot.

Then again, this is his life, and I knew this when I moved in with him; maybe even before I moved into 221B –

Somehow, I knew it, and I wanted this life, this wonderful life.

I still want it. I want to solve crimes with him, I want us to spent our retirement together (he seems to want to move to Sussex as a bee keeper; as long as I can have this, this inexplicable bond between us, I don't really care). I'm just not sure –

He came back, didn't he? He came back and that was all I could ever have asked for. And yet I'm afraid, afraid he might leave again.

He could have left me tonight. And just because, after I had thankfully dodged the bullet, he had to go and throw himself into the line of fire to catch the culprit.

Winter had already put the gun down when Sherlock lounged at him, and of course he immediately decided that he should try and shoot him, when I was still recovering from the shock of not getting shot (please, please, don't let me get slow, I have to protect him) and couldn't pull him back, could do nothing –

He missed, yes, again, or otherwise Sherlock and I wouldn't be sitting in this cab now. I would either be at a hospital, waiting for news, or standing over his corpse –

Again. Why does every thought I have come back to this one word, "again"? People shouldn't be allowed to die twice. It hurts enough the first time around.

I don't mean to say that he should have stayed dead –

How could I?

He should never have died to begin with.

I know he thinks it was the only way to defeat Moriarty. Maybe it was the only way. It is possible that he is right and I am wrong –

I can't help it. He should never have died, and he shouldn't have put himself in harm's way today. I know why he had to. That doesn't mean I have to like it –

Would he understand? No, will he understand? Because I know he will ask me again and again until he has his answer once we are in our sanctuary, once we are back in Baker Street, and eventually I will crack because –

There's nothing else I can do. He's my best friend, and he will ask me for an explanation, and I, unlike other... people believe that you should explain your worries to your friends, especially to your best friends.

So I will, and he will probably frown at me and go to the kitchen to finish the experiment on the thumbs.

He's still staring. Why can't he look anywhere else? I'm sure there are enough passers-by he could deduce, if he wanted to. There's no reason for him to stare a hole in my head, especially since, once we've captured Winter, he didn't even acknowledge what had almost happened.

Just like he hasn't acknowledged what happened over three years ago, not once since his first and only explanation. Although this may have something to do with me hitting him before he ever opened his mouth – and then tending to his bleeding nose – and only then allowing him to speak. I couldn't help myself, though. God knows he deserved it –

Of course I felt bad immediately. He works a miracle, gives me what I've asked for, and I make his nose bleed. He didn't seem upset, however – it was almost like he had expected it. He probably had, he probably carefully chose of several hundred possible reactions which one I was most likely to show. It wouldn't surprise me. Nothing can surprise me anymore when it comes to Sherlock Holmes –

No, no, that's not true, because for some reason, I still thought, even after knowing him for so long, that he wouldn't –

That he wouldn't do what, exactly? This is all so confusing. At times like these, I wish I could be more like him; I wish I could delete everything that's cluttering my mind so I could just think –

Maybe Sherlock is right. People just don't think because they can't because their heads are full of rubbish, like mine is right now.

Did I really think all of this would have changed him? Maybe it has, a little; maybe there is a certain haunted look in his eyes, now and then, and maybe he tries to understand emotions a bit better – which would explain the staring, he's still doing it, it's starting to get annoying, why can't he just go categorize something in his Mind Palace – but he's still brilliant, he's still impolite, he's still –

He's still ready to die if it means solving a case. And he doesn't think about what this would mean to me, to all of us –

Mrs. Hudson suffered as much as I did, back then, although she was stronger than me. She managed to hold herself together. She comforted me, and Greg, and Molly. And yet she went to the cemetery each week without fail, farm more often than I. I couldn't bear to remember his death. She couldn't bear to forget.

Greg had to live with the guilt. I told him I didn't blame him. I hope I didn't. After a while, everything blurred together. It was difficult to get up in the morning (until I met Mary, and that was not until over a year after – after it happened) and it was even harder to know what I was feeling or thinking. Like now.

Apparently I'm as unable to cope with feelings as Sherlock is. Baskerville comes to mind.

How angry I was when I discovered he'd drugged me. Nowadays it seems almost funny; the only thing I can ever be angry about again concerning Sherlock is his fake death –

And times like these, when he almost dies in front of me. It was a miracle Winter missed in the first place. Anyone else wouldn't have.

And he doesn't care. He didn't even acknowledge it. The only thing he acknowledged was that he'd shot at me first –

Greg realized the tension between us as well. Probably everyone did. Donavan looked entirely too smug for my liking (really, she should thank her lucky stars that Sherlock is still alive) and Anderson mumbled something about a "lover's tryst".

I wish I could ask him to stop staring at me. Now it's distracting me from my own thoughts. But I'd probably yell at him if I decided to speak before I've calmed down somewhat.

"John?"

It's the first time he's spoken since we got in the cab, and only now do I realize how strange it is. He should be basking in the afterglow, happily explaining every little deduction –

Apparently I gave his emotional development too little credit. It was exactly the type of case he loves, after all; strange and unpredictable. Even I realize that to lure a man with a strange name who practically never leaves his house to a meeting by pretending a trust fond has been set up for people with exactly that name is nothing short of ingenious. Sherlock is probably disappointed that Winter was so easy to catch once he had figured it out. Never mind the near-death experience. Then again, that's practically part of his job description, and I know that, know it perfectly well and yet I can't help but freak out. Maybe because it's the first time something like this happened since he returned. I'll get used to it –

At least I could see in his eyes just now that he kept silent on purpose, as I had thought. He knew I didn't want to talk, so he decided to stare at me until we arrived –

Well, maybe the development's not been that big, either.

I look at him and realize the cab's stopped. We're home. I nod and get out. Sherlock pays the driver wordlessly and we enter the house. Thankfully it's late enough and Mrs. Hudson is already in bed.

We walk up the stairs in the same tense silence, the silence that has been separating us since we caught Winter.

I open the door and immediately go to the kitchen to make tea. It's what I always do after a case, with the adrenaline still running through us, making it unable to get some rest, but this time I need the few precious minutes alone. Miraculously, he seems to understand because he doesn't follow me. A part of me almost wants him to, to make me talk and be the –

The what? Sensible? Emotionally aware? I can't say.

Music. He's playing the violin. I'm smiling. Against my will, I might add. But I missed his playing so much when he was gone. And right now he's not only playing some random piece; he's playing one of his own composition, the one he usually plays after I've had a nightmare. He's playing it to soothe me. I concentrate on the kettle, or try to. But his music has always pierced through my darkest thoughts, through my nightmares, so how can I pretend not to hear it?

I shake my head. Better to get it over with. I bring the two cups in the living room.

He doesn't stop playing. With any luck, he'll get lost in his head and will only remember he wanted to talk when I've long since gone to bed –

Oh, he just wanted to finish the piece. I should have known. Sherlock Holmes never lets go. Of anything.

He takes the cup in his hands, of course without thanking me, and sits down on his chair. I sit down opposite him.

He looks into his tea and starts, "I realize that what happened upset you – "

I snort. I can't help it. Trust Sherlock to point out the obvious at a moment like this.

"Yes, yes it did."

Sherlock is silent for a moment. Then, he says, "It's part of – "

"I know". I didn't mean to sound so bitter; it just slipped out. Great. Now he's deducing me again.

"Sherlock – it's just – you could have died today".

"So could you". It's said calmly, but I can see the panic in his eyes, the fear of losing the one friend he has. Can't he tell that I'm feeling the same?

I shake my head. "Yes, but – Sherlock, you didn't even care about yoru health. You just jumped into the line of fire".

"It wasn't – "

"I know it wasn't the first time! But – " and now I'm starting to scream, and I can't stop, it has to come out – "It wouldn't have been the first time I watched you die, either!"

Sherlock seems dumbstruck. The thought never crossed his mind, and why should it? For him it's over and done with.

He puts his cup on the table and looks at me, suddenly, in a way he's never looked at me before; he's not deducing, he's not formulating a plan, he's just looking, trying to understand me –

Good God. Where is the real Sherlock Holmes, and what have they done to him?

"John" he starts, slowly, carefully, his eyes begging me not to interrupt him, "I wish I could say I was sorry. But, while I am sorry for leaving you for three years, I am not sorry for faking my death – I can't be sorry for saving you. And, concerning today – I will admit I could have been more careful. But I wanted to catch Winter, and – and – " He stops and the silence is back, and I realize that I'll never get to hear the end of that sentence when he adds "He could have killed you".

And it's only then I realize how much this man has done to protect me; how he hid from everyone he cared for three long years; what he had to do...

I shouldn't have been so angry with him. I should have told him all this in the cab, hell, at the crime scene. He really must be rubbing off on me; before I met him I would have started talking immediately instead of sulking. But perhaps, looking at him and the life we lead, it isn't the worst thing to happen.

He clears his throat and looks at me; I answer the unspoken question and smile. He smiles back and fetches his violin again.

The music filters through the room as I drink my tea. Today hasn't been easy, but no life with Sherlock Holmes is.

And as long as he is in my life, I will never consider it something other than blessed.

**Author's note: Like I said, I wanted to see how I did with a prompt. Please let me know what you think. **


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